


A Soft Place to Land

by queenbookwench



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bathing/Washing, Blindfolds, Cuddling and Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Hand Feeding, Kink Negotiation, Kink Trial and Error, Non-Sexual Kink, POV Brienne of Tarth, POV Jaime Lannister, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Post-Season/Series 07, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Winterfell, gentle Dom!Brienne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-07-28 23:49:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16252310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbookwench/pseuds/queenbookwench
Summary: Two moderately exhausted defenders of the North have a late-night talk and explore new ways to care for one another.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreyHaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyHaven/gifts).



> This is all for **greyhaven** ; it turns out that writing things to entertain and distract a friend during difficult times is very motivating. Thanks so much for being the first audience for the chat-box version of this story and for all my GoT meta and AUs :) 
> 
> I'm a bit nervous about this story for several reasons, including being new to the fandom; I'm open to concrit but please be gentle. 
> 
> I've been told this can stand alone, but I will likely either make it a series or add more chapters at some point. 
> 
> Update: If I can get myself together to write it, there will be a chapter 3 eventually.

They had both gotten off evening patrol, and sat opposite each other at the table nearest the hearthfire.

The hall was dim and quiet, empty except for their fellow watchmen (a black-bearded wildling named Joren and an Unsullied whom Brienne didn't know), standing at the far end and visibly straightening themselves for the long darkness of third watch. A few torches remained lit, along with the embers of the hearthfire, which warmed a cauldron of the very stew that both she and Jaime were currently tucking into as if it were their last meal.

 _As well it might be_ , she thought.

Despite the hour and their general state of exhaustion, she and Jaime couldn't help smiling whenever they happened to catch each other's gaze. Jaime's eyes crinkled pleasingly at the corners, and Brienne silently rejoiced at the spark in them, which had been dimmed for so very long. She was convinced that her own face must bear a thoroughly foolish expression, but she couldn't bring herself to care much.

Winter crept ever closer, heavy and pale as a shroud; they were in a desperate fight for their lives and yet--she and her Jaime were together at last, finally of one accord--hearts, mind and (she still blushed to think on it) bodies. She felt outrageously bold still, thinking of him as _her_ Jaime, even in the privacy of her own mind. Even after he'd moved into her little room, after they'd abandoned all pretense and simply combined their furs, blankets, and straw pallets into one room-filling nest, she still felt so.

Jaime's right arm rested on the table, now sporting a steel hook rather than a golden hand. Gendry had crafted it for him when Jaime had expressed an interest in something more practical, with some sketching and measuring assistance from Tyrion. Relations between the two brothers, while better, were not quite on easy terms yet. And since Tyrion was a meddler and pusher and a butter-in, down to the very depths of his soul, he was channeling his thwarted desire to fuss over Jaime into a series of increasingly elaborate designs.

Brienne rested her hand on the place where the lingering chill of the steel was warmed by his skin. "May I?" she asked.

“Yes, please do.” he replied.

Brienne unwound the straps that held his hook and set it on the table, noting Jaime's quickly-suppressed wince as her fingers brushed the scarred area at the end of his stump, now reddened and chapped from the cold.

"I'll put some of Gilly's balm on that, after we go up," she said. Jaime simply nodded his approval. He was gazing a little past her, seeming to see something beyond the close dimness of the hall.

"What are you thinking of, Jaime?" Brienne asked quietly, then waited.

Outside of teasing contests of wits, Jaime took a bit of waiting for these days. He spoke less, and more deliberately, than he once had. At times he needed to be coaxed, but push too hard and he might prickle up like a hedgepig.

“Oh, just the odd sort of rambles that go through your head when you’re on watch and trying to keep yourself awake,” he said lightly. “Something Sam and m’brother were on about at dinner the other night—the work they’re doing at the Citadel now, helping people with head wounds or who’ve had a brainstorm and they’ve got to learn all sorts of things all over again. Like me and the sword, after this.” He waved his stump expressively.“Still working on that, as I’m sure you’ve noticed out in the yard.”

One corner of his smile quirked downward at that, Brienne noticed. She’d once thrown his despair in his face once, long enough ago that it seemed an entire world away. And she wasn’t _sorry_ , because it had roused the part of him that couldn’t bear to back down from a challenge, the part that knew no other path than clawing his way back into the fight, back to life. Still, she wished she could find give him some greater ease. At least she could give him this truth.

“I think it’s hard for you to see it sometimes, because you’re always looking at how much further’s left to go, but I think that if you could have looked ahead from when you lost your hand to see yourself now, that Jaime would be astounded by what you're capable of.”

He gave her the look he sometimes did, when she’d said or done something quite ordinary that he seemed to find unexpected and wonderful.

“Thanks,” he murmured, and leaned across the table to kiss her lightly on the cheek.

She grinned, pleased. “‘Twas only the truth,” she added.

In the way of late night conversation, Jaime wandered back to what he’d said before. “It’s not just my hand, Brienne,”

(And _oh_ , she'd always feel warmed inside by the way he said her name.)

"It’s my whole...everything," he continued.  "I feel like one of those brainstorm patients, like a child again, having to learn the world all over, learn how to just...be Jaime, I suppose.” He gestured a circle to encompass the hearth and hall around him. “‘It’s partly me, partly being _here_ , I think.”

He didn’t say any more, but Brienne could guess at least some of what he meant.

After a pause, Brienne said, “That sounds—exhausting.”

Jaime breathed out a sigh. “It is that.”

They set their trenchers in the washpot, then lit the candles pulled from their belt pouches to guide the way to their small room, just down the hall from the Stark girls’ chambers. Arya had objected to having the Kingslayer so close at first. Jaime had smiled with the look that most had learnt to be wary of and said “Do you have so little faith in that Needle of yours, then?”

She’d growled irritably and said no more of the matter.

With the door shut behind them, Jaime insisted on divesting her of her many layers first, before she helped him with his. It was a well-practiced ritual by now, but Brienne never tired of it and Jaime seemed to find satisfaction in it as well.

Sometimes all that removal of armor and clothing got them both rather excited, but that night they simply leaned against one another, shoulder to shoulder, as Brienne took Jaime’s stump in her hands. She rubbed Gilly’s soothing, lavender-scented balm into his chafed skin as they both stared into the firelight.

As they’d made their way, something, the beginnings of an idea, had started to come to Brienne. _But how to begin?_ she wondered.

“Jaime—I...” she started, then stopped. Then started again. “Would you like—er, would it help to—rest a bit, from all that, that, doing over?”

“How—how so?” Jaime sounded—cautious, she thought, but intrigued.

“You could—let me know somehow, when it’s weighing on you a great deal, and just—let me take things from there, when it’s just us. I’ll handle everything, make the decisions for awhile. Help you t’rest.” She almost whispered it.

Were Jaime’s eyes a little over-bright, or was it simply the firelight reflected there?

“I...shouldn’t want that,” Jaime whispered back. “You do so much for me already, I’ve no _right_ to want more. I ought to feel insulted—unmanned, even—by the very idea. But—gods help me, Brienne, don’t _tempt_ me with this.” His voice rose, just a little.

Brienne reaches up and cupped his chin, turning his face toward hers. “Jaime,” she whispered again, “do you trust me?”

“More than I trust myself.”

And that was flattering, but...worrisome in a way she couldn’t quite define. “Then trust that this is not a sacrifice, not offered out of some kind of _duty_.”  To speak even a little scornfully of duty was unlike her, and ought to convey how very much she meant it, she thought.

Then Jaime started to laugh, quietly but with increasing force, until his whole body was shaking with it.

“ _What_ , Jaime?” she demanded

“I’m not,” he gasped, “certain it’s worth sharing.”

“Just _tell_ me,” Brienne protested.

“You and Cersei couldn’t be more different, in every possible way, and yet you both seem t’enjoy commanding me.”

Brienne briefly considered being outraged by this, but she _had_ asked. After a moment she began to laugh a little hysterically herself and they collapsed onto each other, sides aching.

“You, Ser, are a wretched, wretched man,” she told him with laughter still in her voice.

“I know, but you _love_ me,” he drawled, wearing an extremely provoking grin. 

She kissed him, which usually worked quite well as a means of shutting him up.

After a certain interval, though, she pulled away to look him in the face once more.

“If you ever...don’t like it, want to stop, just say as much and I will.”

Jaime looked away, seeming uncomfortable once more.

He said lightly, “I’m not a child, Brienne, you needn’t _coddle_ me.”

“Jaime.” she snapped out. It was one stern, flat syllable.

He met her eyes again, swallowing hard.

“I will tell you, if need be. You have my word,” he said finally.

They looked at each other for a long moment, then Brienne nodded. “We’ll be going on with it, then,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

She stood to blow out the candles and bank the fire, then nudged Jaime over until the blankets and furs were arranged to both their satisfaction. Morning would be upon them all too quickly.

 


	2. Placing Myself In Your Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime has a trying day, and he and Brienne Do the Thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _really_ wanted to get this finished before the first episode of season 8, and I'm a little disappointed that I didn't, but anyway, here's 2K of Brienne being the gentlest Dom. Jaime POV.
> 
> Thanks always to GreyHaven, the motivating force behind this story's existence.
> 
> The vast majority of this _was_ written before season 8, and there are no season 8 spoilers. 
> 
> It's pretty tame stuff, for BDSM, but I upped the rating to E just to be on the safe side.

 

 

 

Nothing more was said on that night’s topic for several more days—until the day of Winterfell’s semi-official small council meeting. After hour three, Jaime would have sincerely preferred dueling a White Walker.

Lunch was a hastily-pocketed mutton roll, snagged whilst accompanying the blustery Lord Royce to observe some of his troops training with the new dragonglass weapons. Jaime privately found Royce rather irritating, but the man had at least had the courtesy to ask Jaime to be a second pair of eyes on his soldiers, rather than assuming that either Jaime’s lost hand or his Lannister name rendered him strategically useless, untrustworthy or both. He’d barely had time to wolf down his roll before heading to one of the training yards.

In addition to the many actual soldiers at Winterfell, there were a great number of civilians within the walls and it had been generally agreed (in one of those same interminable small council meetings) that someone ought to be teaching them self-defense. Jaime had been among those who volunteered, on the general principle  of jumping before he was pushed. Somehow, he’d landed himself with one of the groups of children just learning. They trained in the afternoon, after most of the older fighters and civilian guards had done their more formal drilling, and today the lesson was shaping up to be a disaster.

Elbert Glover had stabbed Torren Snow in the arm with his wooden practice sword while they were horseplaying at the edge of the training yard, injuring him seriously enough that he had to be sent to Sam Tarly for patching up.

He'd verbally torn a strip off the boys, fiercely enough that they were both in tears before he sent them off, and there were several audible sniffs from the rest of the group.

When Alysanne Tallhart, usually the calm, sensible mainstay of the beginners' group, dropped her blade twice during the opening drill, Jaime started to wonder if he might have overdone it a bit.

Contrary to his reputation, he didn't _enjoy_ making children who were barely one-and-ten cry.

He could picture the ghost of Ser Sumner Crakehall, whom he'd squired for as an arrogant stripling, shaking his head and saying, "Oh, you thought teaching would be easy, boy?"

Jaime silently told Ser Sumner  that he could fuck _right_ off.

He watched the drill limp to its painful conclusion, then considered for a moment. He raised his hand for a halt, then beckoned everyone close until they formed a tight circle around him.  

He squatted on his heels, making himself a bit closer to their level.

He looked at each in turn. "Do you understand why I was so angry with Elbert and Torren?" he asked.  They all nodded solemnly, but no one said a word.

"Can some brave soul tell me what they think that reason might _be_?" He tried to keep all sarcasm out of his voice, but didn't _entirely_ succeed.

There was a long pause full of awkwardly shifting feet. Finally, Bryn, the head stableman's boy, muttered, "They hadn't ought to have been playing like that in  t’yard."

"And why not?" Jaime prodded.

"'Cos it was against t'rules," Bryn muttered again.

"Because someone could get hurt--and they did!" Alysanne piped up.

"You're both quite right," Jaime said, and was pleased when they brightened a little. 

“We have that rule because--well, you're learning the sword and some injuries and mishaps are likely inevitable. But injuries that could have have been avoided had anyone involved used even a minimal amount of sense, are simply wasteful. And I don’t like waste."

"Even more than that, though," he continued, "here within these walls, you can forget that the skills you're practicing today could mean the difference between life and death. And I want all of you to _live_. Do you understand?"

He went round the circle, lightly touching each child's chin so that they looked him in the eye. "I. Want. All. Of. You. To. Live."

"All right, now--one line everyone! Blades up! We'll run that one again at half-speed."

Out of all the chorus of ghosts in his head, Ser Sumner might scoff, but he hoped that Sir Arthur Dayne, at least, might be a little proud of him. He reflected that Sir Arthur's winning way with the smallfolk had been frequently praised but rarely emulated. Even by him.

After an hour's practice, he dismissed them from the yard, and as he watched them go, it hit him with the force of a small avalanche. Not all of them would. Some of these children--these infuriating, occasionally delightful children--would die.  He leaned against the castle wall and closed his eyes, swallowing hard.

He knew better than this--he’d been a knight, then a member of the Kingsguard, then a commander of armies. You had to have some camaraderie on the battlefield, for soldiers would follow men they admired better than those they merely feared, and units with strong morale fought with greater energy. Often enough it was more for their fellows than their lord or their cause that they fought. But at the end of the day, you drank to the memory of those you’d lost, and you moved on. You didn’t get attached.

This was different though; there was no real choice for many who huddled within Winterfell’s walls--they’d fight, not for honor or for a lord’s ambition, but for their homes and lives. They were children and they’d never asked to be soldiers. He willed himself to push away from the wall and shook those thoughts away as he shook the stiffness out of his limbs.

Mercifully, a cluster of younger knights and older squires were still training at the far edge of the yard, and Jaime was able to insert himself unobtrusively at the end of one of the sparring queues. When his turn came, he lost himself in the motion of blades. The young Vale knight opposite him hissed "Kingslayer," as though that had any sting left for Jaime now.

Still, he took a level of inward satisfaction at disarming the fellow that was perhaps a tad unbecoming to a reformed man. Said satisfaction was short-lived, though, as Podrick (Podrick!) got his sword out of his grip during the next bout.

His fondness for the boy (young man now, truly) meant that he hardly wished to dim Podrick's rather surprised grin with some dampening remark. Which meant that he was a least a _bit_ reformed, _so there,_ he told his current ghost, who looked a bit Ned Stark-shaped in his mind's eye

Afterwards, he closed his eyes and leaned back once again against the castle wall, savoring the pleasant exhaustion of hard training.

He started rather dramatically at the hand on his arm.

Of course it was Brienne. She would have apologized once for startling him, but today she did not--only looked at him a long moment and tilted her head. It was a silent question.  

He just nodded. She took his hand. "All right then," she said.

She seemed to be leading him through the castle by a very circuitous route, but he didn't question, merely followed.

In an empty, isolated corridor that Jaime was almost certain he'd never seen before, Brienne motioned him to a stop.

From her belt pouch, she produced a length of black cloth. Jaime felt a pleasant shiver down his spine. Brienne stepped behind him, lifting the cloth and covering his eyes, then tied it behind his head. Each step careful, gentle even--giving him plenty of time to object.

"Are you---comfortable?" she asked.

Her voice hesitated slightly, and Jaime found it rather adorable.

"Very, milady," he replied, his mouth quirking up slightly

"Then, let's go."

Her voice seemed lower, deeper than usual, and he wanted to go on hearing it forever.

And yet, he also wanted to float in this bubble of darkness and silence, anchored only by the warmth of her hand.

As they moved he had a bit of both, for although they were mostly silent, she murmured instructions as they went. "To the left now. Mind the stairs here--looks like about 10."

They didn't seem to pass anyone--surprisingly for a castle Jaime knew to be crowded--and the footfalls he heard were faint, as if at a distance.

At last he heard a door creak open, then an odd scraping sound...oh, she must have moved something to stop the door. Then he was tugged through.

Scraping again, followed by the soft heavy _thunk_ of the door closing.

As it shut, he began to sense more of what was around him. Thick, moist heat. The murmur of water. "I'm going to take off your clothes now," Brienne said.

She didn't say it seductively. It was simply a statement, like saying she'd rise early in the morning. Which  made it even….even _more_ somehow to Jaime.

Likewise, she didn't do anything out of the usual routine as she removed his armor, leathers, jerkin, trousers, and smallclothes, until he was naked as his nameday before her.

He waited silently as she made getting-undressed sounds of her own--feet shuffling, the clank of armor being piled up, the shh-ing of fabrics rubbing against each other.  He was missing the entirely enjoyable sight of Brienne disrobing, but he could imagine, so imagine he did.

His cock twitched as if he were still a young man of ten and seven, and he ordered it to behave.

Her hands touched his shoulders, a shock of warmth as she rested them there. "Oooh, these feel knotted, love," she murmured. "Are they _very_ sore?"

"I hadn't thought on it until just now," he replied, "but truly they are."

"I'll have to do something about that," Brienne said, "but first..."

Then she was pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, kissing her way down his back.  She nudged him with her hands to turn around, and then she was pressing her lips to his in a kiss that was warm and deep and long.

He felt momentarily bereft when her lips left his, then let out a high-pitched sound ( _not_ a squeak!) when those same lips brushed a soft kiss onto the tip of his cock.

Brienne laughed merrily at the enthusiastic response this gesture produced in him. “Don’t get too excited, now, I have Plans.”

Jaime could hear the capitalization in her voice and grinned. Plans-with-a-capital-P sounded _delightful_.

She took his hand and drew him into the bathing pool, going deeper and deeper; he heard her slight yelp at the intensity of the heat, following by little _mmm_ -ings and _ahh_ -ings as she acclimated.

He lost control of his own mouth shortly after, letting out a deep moan when Brienne gave his shoulders a firm stroke with her spring-warmed hands.

And then he wasn’t thinking of anything, wasn’t anywhere but this moment, drinking in the sensation of her big hands as they lathered him thoroughly all over. She took her time with every inch of his skin, then sluiced streams of warm water over him.

Her arms wrapped around him from behind, and he leaned back against her chest as she towed him toward the side of the pool. He rested there for a long moment, utterly still and content; the distant murmur of the spring the only sound.

When she spoke, it was almost startling. “Keep your eyes closed, love,” she murmured. “I’m going to take the blindfold off so I can wash your face.”

He nodded and did as he was told when she untied the band.

Brienne pulled him back toward her chest and held him there a moment, resting her chin on the top of his head.

Then she leaned a little farther back, loosened her hold a bit, and he was floating free. But she was there, hardly out of contact for a moment, stroking her fingers through his hair. He floated in a warm, soft blanket of darkness and timelessness; the water held him and she held him, the water touched him and she touched him, and they were all a part of the same thing.

The cloth against his face was new and startling, but no less soft. He was distantly aware of little sounds, and that those sounds were coming from his own throat.

Brienne paused and cradled his head in both hands, then leaned down to kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his lips. She was whispering something...it was his name-- _Jaime, Jaime, Jaime_ \--over and over, caressing him with her voice as well as her hands and her lips.

When that hand stroked lower and lower, until it stroked over his cock, he could bear it no more. He arched and released, spilling in the water then collapsed, spent, back into Brienne’s arms. He could feel the smile on her face when she kissed him with fierce enthusiasm, then cleaned him up again.

He was like soft clay beneath her hands as she guided him through the water and out, as she wrapped him in a towel and dried him off, then bundled him into a robe and slippers that were almost too warm for the room. Finally, she replaced the blindfold and began to guide him from the room.

His feet moved, but his mind still drifted in the wordless embrace of water and Brienne, so that the sound of a key turning in a lock was unexpected and harsh to his ear.

They had arrived at their tiny room. The small fire in the grate crackled as Brienne rebuilt it; though in truth, the vents that carried warmth from those hot springs meant that even Jaime wasn’t terribly cold. As Brienne tugged him down into their nest of furs, Jaime’s stomach gave a sudden undignified rumble. In their bubble  of quiet, it was shockingly loud. After a moment, they both quaked with nearly hysterical laughter. When they’d settled once more, Brienne said, “Well, I suppose that’s my cue to fetch us some dinner,” a hint of the laughter still in her voice.

Jaime started to push himself upward.

“None of that, now!” she said. “You look so lovely and relaxed, you’re staying right where I’ve put you.”

“Yes, milady,” Jaime murmured.

Brienne stroked Jaime’s head and her hand lingered, just for a moment, on the knot holding the blindfold in place. He shook his head; he was well content for it to remain.  He listened as her footsteps moved off down the hall and slipped imperceptibly into sleep.

 

Jaime only knew he slept when he flailed out a hand and struck something, he knew not what. He startled upward, heart pounding. Alone in the dark.  For a terrible moment, he thought he might be in the Black Cells, until he perceived the cloth against his face. Ahh.

“Brienne?” he called out. No reply.  He could not tell how much time had passed, but if he’d time to sleep and wake again, surely she should be returning soon?  He heard footsteps in the hall and perked up eagerly. But as the steps drew closer, he could tell that they were not hers. What could be keeping her?

This was Winterfell; not King’s Landing, surely _she_ was safe here, even if he himself was perhaps less so? His heart beat a little faster.  What if something _had_ happened to her? He felt a sudden terror, which he knew wasn’t at all rational, that the dead had come and she fought somewhere, without him to watch her back; that he had been left behind, broken and useless.  The room seemed suddenly like a prison, a trap.

Reaching up, he touched the blindfold; it wasn’t so tight that he couldn’t remove it if he wished. He could go find her, assure himself all was well. She would understand. She wouldn’t be disappointed in him. She wouldn’t.

This is about trust, he reminded himself.  He knew, he _knew_ , that Brienne would move heaven and earth rather than abandon him, and she would be strong enough to do it. So he would wait. _Trust Brienne_ , he told that small trembling part of himself, _trust Brienne_. He began to breathe it in and out, like a kind of chant, and gradually his heartbeat and breathing began to calm.

He had almost completely settled himself when he heard the door creak open once more. “Brienne?” he called out, and something must have shown in his voice because her steps quickened. “I’m here, Jaime,” she replied, and in a moment she was at his side, her hands on his face.

“Jaime?” This time his name was a question, and he wanted to answer, he did, but words felt slippery and far away. “I…” he began, and nothing followed

“Can I help?” she tried again, and this he could manage.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Just...just you. Staying close.”  He felt her body settling next to his, her arms wrapping around him, pulling him toward her chest. He sighed and relaxed there, shifting a little to pillow his head against her. Brienne sighed too, and he felt the ripple of it in his own body.

“I’m sorry it took me so long. Apparently word got out that we were having something other than mutton--we’re both lucky I got away with anything at all.”  She was keeping things light rather than pushing him, and he was deeply, almost shamefully, grateful.

“Here, open up,” she said, and tapped at his lips with a spoon. Obediently, he did, and she popped a bite of stew into his mouth.  He couldn’t help making a frankly obscene noise; it was stew again, yes, but this was beef, rich and good, and the cooks of Winterfell had found a hearty blend of spices to season it with.  “C’n see why there was a queue,” he muttered.

Somehow this---lying back, letting Brienne feed him as she ate, was lulling him back into that dreamy place of safety and trust and contentment. He had begun to doze a little when she nudged him. “I’m going to take off your blindfold now. I want to see your eyes before we go to bed.”

“Very well, milady.”

Her large hands worked deftly at the knot, and then it was off.  He opened his eyes to stare up into her face. It took a moment for him to focus, for his eyes to adjust to the light.  She was bent over him and her luminous blue eyes seemed huge in her face, that dear face, battered and bruised but lovely, because it was hers. He never wanted to stop looking. But his eyelids were so heavy, so very very heavy....

 

****

Brienne ran a light hand over Jaime’s sleeping face and felt his eyelashes touch her palm, whisper-light.

She thought of how he’d looked up, pupils wide, staring at her as if she was his entire world.  She’d like to see that look again.

The part of her that couldn’t help worrying about things, worried over the way he’d sounded when she opened the door, how he hadn’t been able to say what was wrong.

But now he slept peacefully, his face as relaxed as she’d ever seen it, his breathing strong and even.  She loved Jaime in all his moods, even the waspishly irritable ones, but something new stirred in her when she looked down at this Jaime---this soft, wide-eyed, _trusting_ Jaime. He’d given her this, let her touch and care for this tender part of him. He was _hers_ , and she would protect that trust with everything she had.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like "a meddler, a pusher, and a butter-in" is _from_ something, but I can't for the life of me think what--if anyone recognizes that particular phrase, please feel free to give me a heads-up so I can credit properly. 
> 
> "Brainstorm" as a quasi-medievalesque term for a stroke, I stole from Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books ;).


End file.
